MS have announced they will not be releasing a monthly patch which they commited to doing so a short while back...

Quote:

"It is a happy coincidence, but it is not related to Christmas," says Iain Mulholland, security program manager at Microsoft. "We have made a commitment to release the monthly patch package when we're ready, when we have quality patches. There is simply nothing that has passed the bar yet from a quality perspective for release in December."

In October, Microsoft moved to a monthly cycle for security patches, replacing a system of weekly updates that the company said had become too burdensome and complex for customers. The monthly updates also allow Microsoft to reduce the number of patches by folding multiple vulnerabilities affecting a single platform into one patch.

System administrators can expect a security update from Microsoft on January 13, the second Tuesday of January, Mulholland says. However, that doesn't mean patch managers can sign off and hit the shopping mall or relax at home. If there is an immediate risk to customers, Microsoft will break its monthly cycle and issue an emergency patch. "We will break cycle if there is a real, immediate threat," Mulholland says.

supposedly thats not enough, certain security holes can still allow for hackers or viruses to enter your system even if you use a different web browser as your default. Microsoft is truely ridiculous, I mean I like Mozilla Firebird, but even if I used it exculively I'd still have to worry about Microsoft's frigin problems